Twenty-seven sculptures by Pinsel, a mid-18th century sculptor who worked in the Late Baroque and Rococo styles and founded the Lviv school of sculpture, have already been packed in special wooden boxes lined with several layers of cloth, ready to be transported to the Louvre, one of the largest and most visited museums in the world, The Day was told at Lviv National Art Gallery. The exhibition will be opened on November 21 and run through December 25. After that, the artist’s works will be on show in Kyiv, not returning to their homes in Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk until after the Eastern Christmas.
The Day reported in its No. 44, 2012 (see “Why Buchach dwellers do not want to give their Pinzel to the Louvre” article) that in August, the exhibition agreement between Lviv Art Gallery and the Louvre having been already reached, a conflict started over the deacon gate from Holy Mother of God church in Buchach (currently belonging to Ternopil Museum of Fine Arts) and the statue of Saint Onuphrius from the church dedicated to him in the village of Rukomysh as parishioners in both localities refused to lease them out to Lviv, not believing that the relics would be returned to them. According to the chief custodian of Lviv Art Gallery collections Ihor Khomyn, the conflict was partially resolved after the Minister of Culture Mykhailo Kulyniak’s personal intervention. Thus, the deacon gate will go to Paris along with other works by Pinsel, but the Rukomysh statue of Saint Onuphrius will not.
Let us recall that sculptures by Pinsel that belong to Lviv Art Gallery were restored by Lviv restorers while exhibits brought to Lviv from Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk were restored by specialists from Kyiv’s National Center for Restoration. The restoration work continued for three months, from morning till night and seven days a week.
